Drive My Car Guitar Lesson – The Beatles

"Drive My Car" was written primarily by Paul McCartney with some lyrical help from John Lennon. It has a funky and upbeat vibe about it and is probably one of the funnest songs by The Beatles to play on the guitar.

In this Drive My Car guitar lesson video, I will show you how to play all of those funky little guitar riffs and chords used throughout the entire song. I will also break down Paul McCartney's catchy yet tricky guitar solo.

"Drive My Car" starts out with a short blues lick that uses a couple of popular blues guitar techniques including quarter note bends and double stops. On a technical level, it isn't very hard to play, so you will probably fly right through it so you can get to the fun and funky guitar riffs used in the verse.

Those guitar riffs use a bunch of quick slides across the fretboard in a repetitive pattern that is based around just two chords for the most part. Try to really find the groove when performing these riffs. The rhythmic flow is by far the most important part of the riff.

When demonstrating these riffs, I will also show you how they are slightly altered in different parts of the song, including the rhythm guitar part to the guitar solo. Make sure you pay close attention to the explanations, or you may get lost as to what to play at specific parts of the song.

For the chorus we will finally be strumming some full chords (Bmin & G7). These chords are broken up at the end of the chorus with a cool little bass line and transition back to the verse.

After that I will finish the lesson by showing you note-for-note how to play Paul McCartney's guitar solo for "Drive My Car". You heard me correctly, it is McCartney and not George Harrison who performed the solo for "Drive My Car" on the original recording.

Even though McCartney wasn't the band's "lead guitarist", he certainly performs a very catchy yet quite tricky guitar solo. This solo will be a nice challenge for most guitar players. The reason it is so challenging is because of all the quick bends used throughout. Some of these bends are pre-bends which makes it even more difficult to play.

The solo is basically the same melodic phrase repeated 3 times followed by a short melody played with a bottle-neck slide. I don't use a slide in the lesson video, but you'll get the point I am sure.

So take few minutes and learn this great classic by The Beatles. It truly is a blast to play!

Carl...

If these free lessons help you, please donate to keep new ones coming daily. Thanks!! 🙂

Drive My Car Guitar Lesson - The Beatles